


A Light Troubled By Smoke

by Sarah531



Category: Doctor Who, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah531/pseuds/Sarah531
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha Jones briefly meets another medical student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Light Troubled By Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Human Nature but before Blink for Martha. I had to give Combeferre a first name, so he’s ‘Michel’. Enjoy my odd, tragic take on shipping.

She had entered the library through a window. She supposed she should have tried the front door first, but she knew how close 1832 was to 1910, and she knew how she had been treated in 1910, she knew very well.  
  
"They’re on the brink of revolution here," the Doctor had said to her. "Be careful."  
  
"I know," Martha had replied, irritated. "I did do History right up to A-Level, yeah?"  
  
"Sorry," had been his answer, and that had been the first sorry she’d got since, well, since 1910.  
  
They had been in Paris barely five minutes when the Slitheen attacked. The Doctor had gone to find the vinegar, and Martha had been sent to the library.  
  
It was an average sort of day. Martha had heard of the Siltheen before, they were supposed to be relatively harmless these days, but now they had apparently taken to harvesting human organs. They took them from the beggars and the poor people living on the street, and the Doctor’s face had creased in fury when he heard, and Martha had loved him for that. She still loved him. It was dreadful.  
  
She located the medical textbook  she was after and swept over to a free table. She was wearing a long blue dress courtesy of the TARDIS wardrobe, she would have greatly preferred her jeans and jacket but it was alright, she could at least move around in it.   
  
She worked fast, taking notes on some scraps of paper. It was dark in the library and she longed for the flicker of a flourescent light, or at the very least-  
  
"A candle?"

She looked up. A man of her age stood over her, a sympathetic look in his eyes, offering her a candle.

"Thank you," she said in surprise, taking it.

"A face so beautiful deserves to be seen by the light," he said. He attempted to deliver this line smoothly and almost succeeded: he faultered at the end. Some unseen person behind them spluttered with laughter.

"You’re very kind," Martha said, and she meant it, he was sweet. "My name is Martha Jones."

"You are English? You speak very good French."

"Thank you."

"My name is Michel, Michel Combeferre. I’m studying to be a doctor-"

"-As am I," Martha hastily told him. She waited for the dismissal, but it never came. Michel just nodded.

"It is a painful process, but worth it," he said gently.

"Yes," Martha said, thinking of the times she’d breathed life back into someone. "It is."

There was an awkward silence then. Had Martha made any sort of move things might have been different, but she had the Doctor and the TARDIS and worlds to save and a family back home and many many immediate problems, so she just…smiled a bit.

Michel Combeferre bowed his head. “And a process I must return to,” he said, and then he was gone. Martha watched him leave. He had been very good looking, she realised. He reminded her of the Doctor, except much more…a man.

She adjusted the candle, and with a little sigh that no-one heard she traced the last few pages of the book. She could have ripped them out, the Doctor would have, his Rose probably would have too, but she was not them. She couldn’t bear to deface a library book, especially one from a different time and place. She put it carefully back on the shelf.

She exited through the window. It was on the ground floor, it opened out onto a dull and dying garden, she was not spotted. But on the street, she saw Michel Combeferre amongst a group of other men. He was speaking to a boy with bright yellow hair and a dark expression:  _he_ looked like he could be one of the Doctor’s race-

"Enough of this!" called out another boy. They seemed to be close-knit friends, this group. "Combeferre! How went it with that exotic beauty?" Martha bristled at being called exotic, even though she knew no malice was meant.

"She, like our Enjolras, is focused on higher pursuits," Michel said.

"But with such a noble face, and so well dressed-"

"Hush, Courfeyrac."

Martha suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She knew it was the Doctor, she’d felt his hand there many a time. She turned around.

"How’d it go?" the Doctor asked. He was holding a plastic water gun and there was a string of onions across his chest. Martha handed him her notes.

"I was flirted at," she said lightly, jerking her head towards the group of men. "That nice one with the glasses."

The Doctor too was wearing glasses. He pushed them up slightly with his finger and Martha wondered about the meaning of that gesture. “Aaah,” he said. “Didn’t even make the history books, that lot. They die. Next month.”

Martha felt a dull thud in her stomach.

"Sorry," the Doctor said. "They all die heroically if that’s any consolation." He actually did sound sorry. Martha shook her head.

"If it’s not in the history books, how do you know?" she asked him, hoping to touch a nerve and knowing she probably wouldn’t.

"Oh, people tell stories," he said. He cocked his water pistol and ran off, gesturing for Martha to follow him. Martha looked back at the men- they were _her age_ \- and walked away mere seconds before Combeferre would have looked up and seen her.

She wished she had thought to return his candle, she mused sadly as she followed the Doctor.


End file.
